A quick run down of my last minute adventure to Colorado.

Boulder Travel Blog

Ever since I was six years old and my father took my family on our first ski trip to Colorado, I have been enamored with the Rocky Mountains, cold weather, snow skiing, and outdoor activities in general. Well, building on this 15 year old borderline obsession of mine, I applied to law school at the University of Colorado - Boulder. When I was accepted, I decided to go visit, despite the possibility of me going being slim to none, at best, because of financial concerns.

Needless to say, I took the acceptance as a chance to take a trip. Boulder seemed like a great place - school or not - to visit. Having been to the Rockies only during winter for snow skiing purposes, I capitalized on the chance to take a summer trip and escape the synonymous temperature humidity situation in Baton Rouge, La.

The next concern was financing this little sporadic journey out west. I did not really want to fly, because rising fuel costs mean that airplanes aren't the only thing soaring these days. Prices have taken on a nature similar to a NASA test rocket in the 1970s. They just keep on rising, rising, rising, and you guessed it, rising.

A week before I left for Boulder, this trip was not even a possibility. After having lunch with an old professor of mine, though, my situation changed. It just so happened that he was moving to Idaho the following Tuesday and needed help on the long drive. He said I could hitch a ride with him if I was willing to trade shifts behind the wheel. So, you guessed it - I hitchhiked with a professor from Louisiana to Denver, Colorado where I jumped ship at a sketchy-at-best bus transfer station in East Denver.

I then navigated my way to downtown Denver and caught the $4 bus to Boulder.

I got off the bus at the University of Colorado campus, wandered around, had a banana nut Odwalla bar while laying down in a random quad on campus with my backpack. For imaginative purposes, I looked like a fairly well cut hitchhiker/squatter in the field. At this point, I had lined up a couch to surf on for the time, but arrived a day early. Not wanting to intrude any more on my host-to-be, I had contacted an old Louisiana acquaintance who attends school at CU Boulder. He graciously agreed to let me crash his couch, and even let me borrow his extra bike to get around town. Consequently, Boulder is THE biking city. Getting around any other way would seem slightly ridiculous.

Thus, I spent the next few days riding, hiking, and wandering around Boulder. I did, however, have many new friends to share these experiences with. Andrew, my host, his roommates and friends, and my couch surfing host who met up with me for a rather tasty set of local beers on Pearl St.